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Treatment of radioactive liquid organic waste using bacteria community

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Abstract

Waste management plays an important role in radioactive waste volume reduction as well as lowering disposal costs and minimizing the environment-detrimental impact. The employment of biomass in the removal of heavy metals and radioisotopes has a significant potential in liquid waste treatment. The aim of this study is to evaluate the radioactive waste treatment by using three different bacterial communities (BL, BS, and SS) isolated from impacted areas, removing radioisotopes and organic compounds. The best results were obtained in the BS and BL community, isolated from the soil and a lake of a uranium mine, respectively. BS community was able to remove 92% of the uranium and degraded 80% of tributyl phosphate and 70% of the ethyl acetate in 20 days of experiments. BL community removed 81% of the uranium and degraded nearly 60% of the TBP and 70% of the ethyl acetate. SS community collected from the sediment of São Sebastião channel removed 76% of the uranium and 80% of the TBP and 70% of the ethyl acetate. Both americium and cesium were removed by all communities. In addition, the BS community showed to be more resistant to radioactive liquid waste than the other communities. These results indicated that the BS community is the most viable for the treatment of large volumes of radioactive liquid organic waste.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto de Pesquisas Energéticas e Nucleares, IPEN-CNEN/SP, Av Professor Lineu Prestes, 2242, Cidade Universitária, São Paulo, SP, CEP 05508-000, Brazil

    Rafael Vicente de Pádua Ferreira, Solange Kazumi Sakata, Maria Helena Bellini & Júlio Takehiro Marumo

  2. Universidade Cruzeiro do Sul—UNICSUL, Centro de Ciências Biológicas e da Saúde, R. Regente Feijó, 1295, São Paulo, SP, CEP 03342-000, Brazil

    Fernando Dutra

  3. Instituto de Química, Universidade de São Paulo-IQ-USP, Av. Prof. Lineu Prestes, 748, São Paulo, SP, CEP 05508-900, Brazil

    Patricia Busko Di Vitta

  4. Laboratório de Caldas—LAPOC-CNEN/MG, Rodovia Caldas-Andradas Km. 13-Caldas, Poços de Caldas, MG, CEP 37701970, Brazil

    Maria Helena Tirollo Taddei

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  1. Rafael Vicente de Pádua Ferreira
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  2. Solange Kazumi Sakata
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  3. Fernando Dutra
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  4. Patricia Busko Di Vitta
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  5. Maria Helena Tirollo Taddei
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  6. Maria Helena Bellini
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  7. Júlio Takehiro Marumo
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Correspondence to Júlio Takehiro Marumo.

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de Pádua Ferreira, R.V., Sakata, S.K., Dutra, F. et al. Treatment of radioactive liquid organic waste using bacteria community. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 292, 811–817 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-011-1564-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-011-1564-2

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